NFLPA takes fight to the masses

PHILADELPHIA — — If the NFL Players Association wants to come out of an almost inevitable bloody battle against the league's owners with an acceptable collective bargaining agreement in time for the 2011 season, it knows it will have to garner more public support than it has now.

That was the driving force behind Tuesday's NFLPA One Team Tour at the Water Works in Philadelphia.

Taking its fight to the streets as well as cyberspace, the union is visiting each NFL city to promote a message of solidarity and educate fans on the dangers of a lockout that looms over the league like a giant mushroom cloud.

The fallout will hit the masses, AFL-CIO executive vice president Arlene Holt Baker warned, not just people directly involved with the league.

"If this lockout goes far," Baker said, "the kinds of impact it will have [will] not just be on the people here in Philadelphia, but around this nation. It will mean that 25,000 people who work in concession stands in our stadiums, they will not be able to work. It means that in every team's city, we will lose $150 million."

To that end, the Philadelphia chapter of the AFL-CIO has thrown its support behind the players and an online petition at nfllockout.com designed to prevent a labor stoppage.

In the meantime, the NFLPA is prepared to fight the good fight in defense of the players who have been instructed to save their last three game checks as a hedge against a year or more of no income.

Interestingly, DeMaurice Smith, the association's executive director, is conceding nothing at this point -- not even the 18-game season that most people think will happen no matter what.

"Right now, under our current system, 18 games is a non-starter," Smith said. "Issues like contact, offseason workouts, in-season workouts, where we are in the current season, adding two more games is something that's not sustainable. So we'll continue to talk to them about any proposal they want to put forward. ... but given our current system, two extra games means a shorter career, it exposes us to injuries.

"That's not moving forward. Right now, that's moving backwards."

Smith is not concerned with how deeply the owners seem dug in on certain issues — they reportedly have compiled a $900 million surplus to get them through a year with no football — and how much better equipped they are to outlast the players in a prolonged work stoppage.

"I don't spend a whole heck of a lot of time dealing with `seem,' " Smith boasted. "It's our job to work hard to try to get a deal done. I don't characterize where they are, they don't characterize where I am. It's important for us to get together, share the right information and get a deal done as quickly as possible."

At the root of the problem is the cut of the total revenue that goes to the players. Currently, the figure stands at 60 percent minus $1 billion off the top. That amounts to around 50 percent, according to Smith.

The owners, Smith said, want to take an additional $1 billion off the top without increasing pay and adding two games to the regular season.

So where does this all leave the players? Between a proverbial rock and a hard place, especially because guys like Eagles right tackle Winston Justice can't be spending a whole lot of time pondering a life without football — not with a game at division rival Dallas looming in five days.

Justice and teammate Ellis Hobbs, a cornerback who is on the injured reserve list and thus finished for the season, were the only current Eagles in attendance at Tuesday's function. Middle linebacker Stewart Bradley was on the list, but even had he showed, the attendance had to be disappointing, to say the least.

Nevertheless, Justice and Hobbs were there in a show of support and claimed to be ready to do whatever it takes to nail down a CBA that's fair to all.

"I'm pretty concerned about it," Justice said. "The thing is, with the football players, you're so concerned with the season right now, players aren't really thinking about next year. So that's kind of the challenge that the players are going through.

"... The biggest thing we can do now, that I can do now, that the players can do now is share knowledge with each other, because a lot of players don't really know everything that's going on."

Hobbs, who has landed on IR in each of the last two years, naturally is dead-set against the 18 games proposed by the owners.

"I think it's ridiculous," he said. "I don't know if everyone else would agree with me, but me alone, to go through injuries time after time, day after day — now you add two more games to the end of that. Now you're talking about teams are totally out of the playoff picture risking health and their career for what I understand is no extra pay."

What this is all is leading to, barring an unforseen breakthrough, is something ugly.

"It's important for all of our players to hope for the best but also prepare for the worst," Smith said. "We've been, I think, brutally clear with the players about the necessity of them protecting themselves and preparing for this lockout. I think the more that our players are prepared for a lockout, the more of a likelihood that it won't occur."